Marijuana Prevents Alzheimer’s Disease, Major Researcher Suspects

A prominent professor of neuroscience, immunology and medical genetics at Ohio State University says in an recent interview that using low doses of marijuana for prolonged periods of time at some point in your life “is probably going to slow the onset or development of dementia, to the point where you’ll most likely die of old age before you get Alzheimer’s.”

I’m sorry, come again?

The quotes come from a LeafScience interview published Jan. 29 with Gary Wenk, PhD, professor of neuroscience, immunology and medical genetics at Ohio State University, who has studied how to combat brain inflammation for over 25 years.

Inflammation plays a major role in not only Alzheimer’s, but ALS, Parkinson’s disease, AIDS, dementia, multiple sclerosis, autism, schizophrenia, etc. Taking anti-inflammatories has preventative effects in the brain, Wenk says. And cannabis is among the oldest, strongest, cheapest, safest anti-inflammatoriesthere is. THC also directly works on the Alzheimer’s disease cycle.

“ .. if you do anything, such as smoke a bunch of marijuana in your 20s and 30s, you may wipe out all of the inflammation in your brain and then things start over again. And you simply die of old age before inflammation becomes an issue for you,” Wenk states.

More than five million Americans have Alzheimer’s today. One in three seniors will die with Alzheimer’s or another dementia, and Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the nation, costing America about $203 billion in 2013.